Why The Fast and the Furious Franchise Has the Superior “Comic Book” Movie Shared Universe

This isn’t going to be the longest post for two reasons: 1) I made a bet with a friend and am only eating leaves for the entirety of today [this was my breakfast] and am therefore weak in mind, body, and spirit, and 2) this is a very straightforward assessment that two other other writers have already broken ground on already. Let me take a single step back, though, and remind you of what happens in a week’s time and why I’m writing this.

Remember at the end of Iron Man when Tony Stark meets Nick Fury for the first time and your nerdy friend gripped your arm so hard you thought they would snap it and whispered directly into your ear that “it’s happening“? The FF movies have been pulling that same move for years without the help of a narrative that’s been ongoing since the 60s. Every one of their reveals is builds on the preceding films,and the fact that they’ve managed to makethis viewer drop his jaw is worth mentioning in and of itself.

“In each of these films, the characters can do things in cars that defy both logic and the laws of physics. And when outside of their garishly colored vehicles, they prove impossible to kill by conventional means: bullets never find their targets, explosions merely singe their clothes, jumps from preposterous heights simply piss them off.

In other words, there is no functional difference between these guys and most of the Marvel Universe. They are, for all intents and purposes, superheroes.”

Continuity, check. Larger-than-life characters, check. What do these films really offer that Kevin Feige and the rest of the crew over at Marvel Studios hasn’t already? Again, Bernardin, if you would be so kind:

“And I challenge you to find another studio film with this diverse a cast that isn’t in some way about race or, at the very least, hits you over the head with its diversity. The F&F flicks are full-to-bursting with blacks, Hispanics, all kinds of Asians, a Pacific Islander or two, and a crazy-quilt of ethnic blends and no one takes notice of it. In fact, there’s really only one white dude in the whole damned saga who isn’t a villain.”

“Both ‘X-Force’ and ‘Fast & Furious’ are about evolution. They both started out as one thing — the teen-drama series ‘New Mutants’ and a ‘Romeo & Juliet’ with cars series — and morphed into a more extreme version of themselves.”

He also goes on to draw further comparisons between their over-the-top completely bonkers action scenes, their diversity as just mentioned, and their focus on “familial bonds based on shared experience and mutual respect.” These are bombastic high octane series, but they’re fundamentally optimistic works-

-which is more rare than you might think, especially given that the first building block in DC/Warner Bros. shared universe took their most hope-inspiring intellectual property and turned him into, well . . . that’s a post from another time. As cheesy as lines like the one above may seem, and they are that, they’re part of the reason that the FF movies attract the audiences they do. Bad things happen, but the franchise refuses to let its characters and narratives dwell on them.

I would’ve been enamoured with The Fast and the Furious based on their seeming commitment to diversity alone, and everything else is just a little something extra on a cake that is already mostly frosting. This movie appeals to me as a lover of comic books, representation in media, and one incredibly enormous man lifting up an even bigger man to be elbowed in the face by another incredibly enormous man.